Symtech Racing ready for the start of the Polish Rally Championship
The Belgium-based Symtech Racing team, which runs the official car for Subaru Poland on the Polish Rally Championship, is feeling confident heading into the first round of the series this weekend, the Elmot Rally based in Swidnica.

Symtech Racing has prepared a new Group N Subaru Impreza STi STR09 for the Subaru Poland Rally Team, which will be driven by Kajetan "Kajto" Kajetanowicz and co-driven by Jacek Rathe. The new Symtech car features all the very latest Group N technology and also offers a considerable weight saving over previous years, which should allow Kajetanowicz, the runner-up in last year's Polish Rally Championship, to be competitive again this year.

However, the opposition is sure to be extremely fierce. There are no fewer than five Super 2000 cars competing in Poland this year, driven by some seasoned regulars on the World and European Championships, including Leszek Kuzaj, the official Peugeot driver Tomasz Kuchar and the actual leader of the European Rally Championship, Michal Solowow. Amongst the many competitive conventional Group N runners there is also former Polish Rally Champion Bryan Bouffier in a Mitsubishi.

In order to prepare for the all-asphalt Elmot Rally, which will total around 150 competitive kilometres, the team carried out a two-day test earlier this week on roads similar to those that the crew will encounter during the rally. Throughout the 180-kilometre test, the team encountered no problems whatsoever with the state of the art Subaru. It was raining during some of the test, which gave Kajetanowicz the opportunity to practice driving in wet weather, and also to look at some set-ups for rainy conditions.

Kajetan commented: "We had a really good test so now I am very much looking forward to the start of the rally. Last year we finished runner-up in the championship, so I hope that we can again be competitive this year. On this event, I am mostly going to be concentrating on learning the car and not making any mistakes. Our plan for the year is very much to think about the whole championship. If we can get to the end of this rally with a solid points finish, then it will be an excellent way to start the season."

Wim De Boeck, the co-owner of Symtech Racing, concluded: "So far it has been an extremely good collaboration with "Kajto" and Jacek. "Kajto" is a very fast driver who has an instinctive feeling about what is needed to make a car go quickly. Our test was extremely valuable as it allowed us to try different set-ups in varying conditions so that "Kajto" could really get to know the car. By the end of the two days he was very happy with it, so we are all looking forward to the weekend."

The rally gets underway on Friday 15 May at 12:45 and ends on Saturday 16 May at 18:30 after 15 special stages. The start and the finish takes place in Swidnica, to the south west of Poland.

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